


Awakening

by LostInWonder



Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sentinel AU-Sentinels are not known, Sentinel Senses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInWonder/pseuds/LostInWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl's Sentinel senses are awakened after he is gravely injured during the hunt for Sophia.  From a prompt on twdkinkmeme -that has no kinks whatsoever, I promise :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes off from the episode "Chupacabra" from season 2.

Daryl lay on his back on the damp creek bank. He was in and out of consciousness, the arrow in his side barely even throbbing anymore. Merle had come to him, berating him, goading him to move. He was only dimly aware that it wasn't real, that his brother was gone, probably dead, and that this was his mind trying to make him get up and fight. Fight the overwhelming heaviness in his limbs, fight the lack of will to move. He felt Merle kicking his foot, telling him to get up, get up before he had to kick his teeth in. It was so familiar he couldn't accept that his brother was not really here, not when he was left with no one else in the whole world, when he was probably going to die.

The kicks became more insistent, Merle was grabbing his leg and shaking it violently, and suddenly what Daryl's half-open eyes registered forced him to fully awaken. A walker had his leg in it's grip and was attempting stupidly to gnaw through his boot. Panicking, he kicked wildly until the thing was dislodged. His eyes lit on the only weapon he could put to use, a thick broken tree branch. He grabbed for it and tackled the walker onto its back, bashing it's skull repeatedly with the stout piece of wood until it's forehead collapsed and he had breached the brain case.

Before he had time to recover, another was shambling at him too quickly for him to retreat in his injured state. He knew didn't have the strength to outrun it. What had been too scary for him to attempt before now became necessary. He acted without thinking, grabbing the crossbow bolt trapped in his flesh and yanking it out, the white hot flash of pain nearly robbing him of his remaining strength. With the snarling corpse nearly bearing down on him, he threw his weight backwards enough to have room to cock his weapon and loosed one bolt through it's head. The body thudded down next to him, cracking its jaw as it landed and laying still.

He collapsed onto his back, catching his breath, just taking in the fact that he was still alive. The exhilaration almost felt like a drug. His eyes caught on Sophia's doll and his heart sank suddenly. Those walkers, the discarded doll. No, no, not like this. He was so close, he could have found her. If he'd gone longer the other day, if he'd been more careful with that fucking horse and not been thrown. Merle's words came back to haunt him, she wasn't his kin, why was this so important? He didn't know and wasn't in mood to think on it when suddenly he heard the sound of a little girl crying.

His head whipped around, looking for the source. Nothing had moved in his surroundings, the creek was still. What the fuck ? It sounded so close.

"Sophia!" he yelled out, as loud as he could. He barely had the strength to make a decent noise and he cursed himself. That _had_ to be her. He looked in the direction the sound had come from. He was hearing it again, as clear as if she was standing right there. But she wasn't.

He was ready to pass it off as another hallucination, but then suddenly the formless crying ceased and he heard something else. She was praying. "Our father, who art in Heaven..." and then he knew without a doubt that it couldn't have come from his mind.

He re-bound his wound tighter, and heedless of the pain, took off staggering towards that voice. The voice became surrounded by other sounds then, the raspy moaning sounds the walkers made as air rushed through their decaying windpipes. He started to panic again. As he pushed through the brush, he became confused, then frustrated as he didn't see the source of the noise yet. She _had_ to be close.

The praying continued, he heard her as clear as day now, her voice was getting louder and stronger as she chanted the words, beginning the same prayer as soon as she had ended the last round without a break. And the sounds of the geeks that he realized were surrounding her got louder as well. He had no idea how she still lived. The enemies were right there with her, if he was hearing correctly.

Finally, after he'd gone at least a half-mile, his eyes found what he'd sought. She had climbed a tree, a tall one, and he couldn't see her through the leaves but he heard her, and he saw the three walkers scrabbling at the base of the trunk, too stupid to make the climb a twelve year old girl had made easily.

The relief that flooded through him nearly made him drop, but his body responded automatically, cocking and firing his crossbow, reloading and repeating, felling the three corpses before they even had the chance to turn on him. He stood still, taking in the bodies he'd dropped, the realization that he'd done it, he'd found that little girl. Just like he'd said he would. A feeling unlike anything he'd ever felt washed over him. He'd really saved her, when no one thought he could ! Then the ground seemed to jerk underneath his feet and his vision shuttered into blackness as his body collapsed.

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

He awoke to smells and sounds that overwhelmed him. Blooming flowers, all the different types at once, assaulted his nostrils, creating one heavy wall of scent that made him want to hold his breath. Chirping birds, buzzing insects, croaking frogs, the gently rushing water of the creek he left behind, all the noises of the woods were filling his ears with a deafening drone.

He felt something warm squeeze his hand and his eyes fluttered open. Sophia. There was a quiet, steady heartbeat in his ears suddenly that was not his own and he realized instintively that it was _hers_. The sounds and smells that had blanketed his senses so uncomfortably started to recede, replaced by that small rhythmic thumping, and he started to regain his bearings.

She was looking down at him, her brow furrowed with concern. She squeezed tighter as she saw his eyes open. "Are you gonna be ok?" she asked in a quavering voice. He realized he looked like shit, filthy and bloody. He didn't want to scare her.

"M'fine," he mumbled.

She must have known he was full of shit. "I'm gonna help you up, we have to find a place to hide," she said insistently, tugging on his wrist to encourage him to get up. He let her help him up and together they started to move.

"Is my mom ok? " she asked nervously.

"Your mom's fine, " he grunted, just staying upright was taking all of his effort right now. "We ain't hidin', we gotta get back."

"But what if more of them show up?" she whimpered. "You can hardly walk."

"Don't need to walk, long as I got this, " he said , indicating his crossbow hanging heavily on his back, sounding as nonchalant as he could. He started limping towards the bodies.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He didn't answer her, he didn't have the wind. But he yanked each of the bolts free of their rotten heads.

"Alright, now we're ready," he said, amused and relieved at the disgusted look on her face. It meant she was ok.

*******************************************************************************************************************************************  
They made their way slowly towards the farm. His senses were reeling again. Everything was so _loud_ , and the sunlight was blinding him even though it was no longer that bright. Even his skin was over sensitized, not just his injury which was close to agonizing at this point but everywhere fabric was touching him felt like it was full of biting fleas.

Sophia was chattering as they walked, probably to soothe her own nerves, and he started focusing on her voice to stay calm, to remind himself that he had to stay strong for her. He _found_ her, what would happen if after all that, she got killed because he couldn't handle his shit?

She'd found that farmhouse and holed up there, she was telling him. Daryl must have just missed her, it was the same one he'd been to just yesterday. She left to go find water and had found the creek where she lost her doll fleeing from a sound that startled her. She didn't know if it had been walkers or not, she'd just ran and ran, and then climbed up a tree to rest. And then she'd been trapped.

"I was praying and praying and then you found me," she finished breathlessly.

Daryl wasn't so fast to attribute that to God but if that's what made her feel better he was in no place to argue. But something weird was definitely going on with him, and it was taking a lot of effort not to collapse onto the ground again and shield his eyes and ears from the painful onslaught.

"Daryl, are you ok?' he heard Sophia's voice at his head level, high-pitched with concern, and realized he had fallen to his knees.

Alright, enough of this, he said to himself, stop being such a pussy and get this girl home. You can keel over and die after.

"Help me up," he whispered hoarsely and she leaned her shoulder in so he could use it. He got to his feet and tried to straighten up, but Sophia grabbed onto his arm and pulled it back over her shoulders.

"Lean on me," she said firmly, suddenly sounding unafraid.

*****************************************************************

They kept moving, Daryl using Sophia as a sort of crutch. They stopped frequently, as he or she needed to recover strength.

He pointed out edible berries to her as they came across them, and they stopped at the creek to fill up the empty water bottle she had tucked away after leaving the abandoned farmhouse.

"If we need it, we'll boil it later, can't always trust creek water," he told her, and she nodded gravely.

She helped him up the steep embankment he had fallen down originally. She was a good climber, and was able to give him just enough of a pull here and there that he made it, though he was catching his breath for minutes once they reached the top.

He found that his senses were calming down as he concentrated again on her heartbeat, and her voice when she spoke. The confusing din of sounds began to break apart into individual parts-the frogs were separate from the buzzing flies,which were separate from the buzzing of bees, and were wholly different from the sound of a hummingbird's wings. It was just starting to dawn on him that there was no way a man could be hearing these things this clearly, and his stomach rolled with dread at that thought for some reason. It wasn't _natural_.

Before he was able to ponder that, he heard the sound of tearing flesh and froze. Sophia stopped short, keeping him braced against her. He listened, trying to focus on that one noise, to hear if there were more than one. There didn't seem to be, and he was relieved. It lay in the path of the farm but he could easily dispatch one walker. He realized all of a sudden that all the other sounds had faded as he focused his attention on his target. He could sense how far it was in relation to them, and knew it's victim, whatever it was, was too far from the farm to be one of the group.

" _Daryl_ ," he heard Sophia's voice next to him, sounding urgent. She was shaking his shoulder, sending little shockwaves of pain down into his bleeding wound and he realized he was on the ground. He had no memory of falling down.

"Shit, " he muttered. She was looking at him wide-eyed.

"What happened?" she asked. "Can you still get up?"

"Lost my balance is all, " he lied, shaking his head as though it would shake loose some kind of real answer, to himself at least. When it didn't, he let her help him up yet again.

He took his buck knife off his belt and handed it to her. She looked at him questioningly.

"If I fall down again and you can't get me up, you gotta make it back, " he said softly. "I can tell you the way now-"

"I'm not gonna leave you," she broke in resolutely. " _We're_ gonna make it back."

He blew out a frustrated sigh and re-sheathed the knife. "Alright, kid, then we better move a lot faster."  
******************************************************************

It was close to dusk by the time they made it back. He barely had it in him to keep moving once he saw the RV at the outskirts of the property. All the adrenaline that had kept him going seemed to drain suddenly and he swayed on his feet. Sophia was hardly able to prop him up. She was as exhausted as he was. They hadn't spoken a word since they'd started off again.

He saw Andrea on top of the vehicle. She was looking out at him through the scope of her rifle. He realized with a start that he was seeing her as clearly with his naked eye as she was seeing him through the magnified lens. She started calling everyone excitedly.

"It's Sophia! He found Sophia!"

Suddenly Carol was barreling out of the farmhouse. He heard her panting sobs as she ran across the open field. Sophia took off towards her mother and Daryl watched as they collided in a frantic, joyous hug that ended up with them both on the ground, laughing and crying at the same time. He felt an elation unlike anything he'd ever felt in his life as he stood there watching them.

But then Sophia was pulling away from Carol, he heard her telling her how bad he was hurt, that they needed to help him and then they were both coming towards him. In the distance, the men were all starting to make their way over as well.

Carol was thanking him, over and over as she closed the distance between them, and caught him under one arm as he started to fall. She wasn't able to hold his full weight and he was no longer able to stand. He felt Shane and Rick catch him under both his arms as Carol ducked away, and then he was out cold.


	2. Chapter 2

Herschel patched him up as best he could. Not too serious unless it got infected, he'd said. He wasn't even too upset about his missing horse. Daryl heard them all talking outside the room they had put him in. A miracle, they were saying, that he'd managed to come across her. And in the nick of time, too.

Now that he was resting and the painkillers were taking effect, he was uneasy. He couldn't even enjoy the comfort of the first real, clean bed he'd laid in in months or the fact that he was a fucking hero right now. Something was seriously wrong and he didn't know what to do about it. Was he some kind of mutant, all of a sudden getting super-senses because he'd come close to death, like those people he'd read about as a kid who got hit by lightning and wound up with psychic powers ? Or was he infected with something somehow and was this just the beginnings of some sickness manifesting? He'd never have believed the dead could get up and start to kill the living, so he wasn't ready to dismiss any ideas just yet.

He tried to filter out the clinking plates and soft voices of the group eating down the hall, concentrating on outside, where it'd be quieter. He seemed to be on the verge of being able to quiet his mind finally when his ears caught something unexpected and jarring. The sounds of geeks, many of them all together, and not that far away. No more than an eighth of a mile. It almost seemed like it could be coming from...no that didn't make any sense, they couldn't all be in the barn. They had to be heading for the house. He had to alert the others.

He struggled out of bed, remembering to pull on his shirt to cover himself even in this worried state, and made his way towards the dining room. He nearly bumped into Carol, she barely caught the plate of food she was holding as he startled her.

"What are you doing up?" she asked, concerned. "I was bringing you some dinner."

"There are walkers out there, a bunch of 'em, gotta take care of it." He pushed past her with some effort and entered the dining room. Herschel was the first to react.

"What are you doing out of bed, son? You need to rest, is something wrong?"

"Yeah, somethin's wrong, there are geeks outside, bout a dozen or so, real close," he told them. He looked pointedly at Rick, then Shane. "Y'all better get on it 'fore they get the livestock."

The two of them were up in a heartbeat, then Glenn and T-Dog. Herschel had an odd look on his face that didn't seem to be right for the situation, and Daryl found himself immediately suspicious, even though this man had just stitched him up.

Daryl realized he didn't have a weapon and was about to ask Herschel what the hell happened to his crossbow when Rick and Shane came back through the door, looking puzzled. Daryl hadn't heard shots fired or any sounds of a scuffle, and was a little puzzled himself. He knew what he'd heard.

"How exactly did you know there were walkers out there? " Rick asked. His face reminded him of every other cop he'd ever seen questioning a witness he didn't find exactly credible. But he also sounded concerned.

Fuck, had he imagined all that noise? Was he just delirious? "I heard them," he said, trying to concentrate and listen again. Yup, there it was. Not in his head at all.

"I'll show y'all," he said firmly, walking unsteadily towards the door.

He heard Herschel say low to Rick behind him, "It could be a reaction to the painkillers, you should get him back to bed before he hurts himself."

"I ain't high, old man," he snapped suddenly. He could tell he was lying, he could smell it, that nervous sweat. Holy shit, how the fuck could he be doing that?

"Daryl !" he heard Rick's voice, using a tone he'd use with Carl. Then gentler, "C'mon, you need to rest, let us help you back to bed."

"I said I'll show y'all, " he growled at Rick and forced himself out the front door.

He headed towards the barn. "You don't want to do that," he heard Herschel warn urgently.

Daryl was hearing them clearly now, milling around in there and tried to move faster. He was unarmed but he barely registered that fact right now, so dead set on proving himself right.

"Hey!" Rick came up next to him and grabbed his arm roughly, forcing him to stop. "What are you doing?" he said in a harsh whisper.

"They're in the barn," Daryl said, struggling to catch his breath. "There are walkers in the barn."

************************************************************

If it weren't for Rick, they'd probably all be out on their asses right now, Daryl was thinking. How the hell was he supposed to know that Herschel didn't know these things were truly dead? He actually had thought they were sick, that somehow there might be a way to heal them. He had stormed out to the barn to show them all the threat and expose whatever Herschel's ill intent had been. But then he came to find out there wasn't ill intent behind his deception, just desperation and grief. His damn wife was in there!

He was laying in his small tent, finally resting like he was supposed to. After Rick had convinced Herschel that they'd leave the barn alone, even help him keep it secure, Daryl had quietly slipped away from them all to find some peace and quiet. He felt uncomfortable being the cause of so much drama.

Now alone in the dark tent, he found his ears couldn't turn off. Glenn was comforting Maggie out on the porch, reassuring her that they were good people and to convince her dad that they should stay. Their conversation trailed off and was replaced with small, slurping sounds. He realized with a start they were kissing and immediately tried to shift his hearing elsewhere, embarrassed. He didn't know they were hooked up. Damn, that kid moved fast.

He tried to concentrate on the area away from the farmhouse, where he wouldn't be accidentally eavesdropping on other people's business. Eventually the sounds of the woods were filling his senses, their familiarity relaxing him, and he felt himself finally drifting into sleep.  
***************************************************************************

Carol and Sophia seemed to be making it their mission to smother him with attention. The first day he did nothing but doze on and off but he was aware that they were checking in on him every half hour or so. They brought him food so he wouldn't have to get up more than necessary.

He didn't have much of an appetite. Whatever was wrong with him was affecting his tastebuds. He could taste the chemical preservatives in the canned foods they were using, and apparently even spices like pepper were going to be too irritating to tolerate anymore.

Late the second afternoon, Carol came in and settled on the floor next to his cot.

"Sophia says you found her because she was praying to God. She thinks you're some kind of angel." She was smiling gently at him.

He felt uneasy. "Ain't no angel," he muttered dismissively. "Just in the right place at the right time."

There was a rustle at the tent flap. Rick stepped partly inside. "Sorry to interrupt," he said,looking at Carol. "Mind if I talk to Daryl alone for a minute?"

Carol nodded, stood up and left them alone.

Rick cut right to the chase. "How did you know there were walkers in the barn?" he asked, a little too accusingly for Daryl's taste.

"I heard 'em." he answered simply. He realized right away that this wasn't going to make the right sense, not to a cop who was used to looking for holes in a story.

"From the bedroom?" he asked evenly.

Daryl thought for a second. He knew that would have been impossible. He hesitated, not knowing how to explain it.

"yeah, " he heard himself answer honestly, before he had really decided it was a good idea.

"So you didn't know about them before you went out to look for Sophia?" Rick asked then.

Daryl could sense the doubt in Rick's voice and it got under his skin. "What're you tryin' to say?"

Rick sighed, bowed his head for a second. "Look, I know you don't owe us anything, especially after what happened with your brother. But I need to know why you didn't tell us." He sounded a little patronizing, but his voice was soothing, not hostile, and that took away some of Daryl's growing anger.

"I told you I heard'em from the bedroom. Not before."

"Daryl, you know how far that is. You know that isn't possible."

Fuck it, Daryl thought. He had to let him in on it, he couldn't tolerate any of them thinking he was a liar. "You don't believe me, go on out to the farmhouse and say somethin' out loud. "

"What?" Rick asked incredulously.

"Say somethin' out loud and I'll stay right here and tell you what it was," Daryl repeated, hoping he'd be able to focus in on the spot like this the same way he'd been practicing.

A bemused smile crossed Rick's face, like he was pretty sure Daryl was fucking with him. But he agreed to do it, and left the tent.

Daryl honed in on Rick's footsteps as he crossed the yard, wanting to keep his focus so this would work. He was still marveling at how he heard each step crunching the grass. He heard the footsteps stop, and Rick's voice.

Then BOOM, a deafening blast obliterated his hearing altogether, replacing it with a ringing so loud it felt like it would burst his eardrums. He covered his ears reflexively with his hands to no avail, the pressure was so intense it made him nauseous. He felt hands covering his own then, pressing against the sides of his head, and realized it was Carol. He hadn't even seen her come back into the tent. Now she was sitting on the cot with him, trying to hold him still, and suddenly he felt the stabbing pain in his side from the stitches pulling. He groaned and she firmly pulled his hands from his ears and eased him back down into a lying position again. Another shot rang out, and then another, sending the ringing sound back into the unbearable range and he cried out in pain.

He was panicking from the confusion, he started to be aware of a lot of yelling outside. Something was going down and he was paralyzed and useless.

Then there was that soft little hand grasping his again, squeezing gently, and that familiar heartbeat. Sophia. He forced his eyes open. "You're gonna be ok, " she was saying. They were alone in the tent, Carol must have run out to see what was going on. "Don't worry, I'm gonna stay with you," she added, and that maternal voice coming out of that little girl's mouth made him come to his senses. Jesus, I'm supposed to be the man here, he thought, disgusted with himself.

The ringing in his ears dissipated and he forced himself to scan outside for the source of the conflict as he went to grab his crossbow. He stopped as he realized it was over.

Herchel and Maggie were yelling at Shane. Daryl gathered he'd shot up a walker Herschel was wrangling back to show him that they were truly dead. He heard Rick come on the scene and start peace-making, but this time Herschel wasn't having it.

"I want you all gone !" were the last words Herschel growled before Daryl heard the farmhouse door slam shut.  
**************************************************************

The group had a meeting around the fire a little later, discussing options. Shane still wanted Fort Benning and no one else had any ideas. Rick seemed convinced he could still work it out so they could stay. Herschel had given them a few days, just enough for Carl to be safe to travel. Daryl stayed in his tent, not participating. He felt awful about it, he'd meant to protect them, thinking there was an immediate threat, and now they might be forced back onto the road.

It felt worse since just earlier that day he had overheard that Lori was pregnant and had no intention of telling Rick. It sure as hell wasn't a secret he felt he had a right to know, but what if they had to go back out on the road with Rick not even knowing she was pregnant? Did he have a right to keep that secret?

"Well if he had just kept his mouth shut, or told us in private, we wouldn't be in this situation," he heard Andrea saying.

"If it wasn't for Daryl, Sophia might not be alive," he heard Carol reply, sounding angry, and that felt good. When Sophia piped in with, "He was just trying to protect us," sounding as indignant as her Mom, he felt a lump in his throat all of a sudden.

"This was bound to happen anyway," Rick broke in. "No one's to blame here."

Except Shane, Daryl was thinking. He wondered if Rick would be so forgiving if he knew Lori was probably carrying Shane's baby.

He listened to them worrying out loud, wondering what to do next, their voices as clear as if he were sitting among them. He realized he had to tell them. If he had a way to help them survive, he couldn't just keep it secret. But he didn't feel comfortable just walking out there and announcing that he had super powers. Just the idea made him want to laugh. And it wasn't altogether a good thing. There were those times when he got overwhelmed and had a hard time re-orienting. He wasn't too useful at those times. But maybe he could learn to handle it, like the way focusing on Sophia's heartbeat had allowed him to clear out the other noise.

He looked up as he heard someone enter. It was Rick.

"So what did I say?" he asked softly. "Back at the farmhouse earlier."

Daryl looked up at him, relieved that he had come to him in private.

"Sounded like, 'if you're hearin' this, I'll eat my hat," Daryl said, smirking a little.

Rick stared back at him, a little dumbfounded. He shook his head finally. "Guess I'll get me a knife and fork."


End file.
